thought little about her until she saw her again on a second, and then on a third day. She asked Senor Mattos if he knew who she was, this woman who appeared so detached from what went on around her. Mattos did not. However, he suggested that she might be the wife of one of the individuals who worked at the docks, perhaps one of those Indians sentenced there for idolatry by “that damned Landa.” Mattos’s supposition proved to be correct, and the woman, Maria de Totonac, and her child, Anac, were to be the first among a long line of Indians, men, women and children, whom Catalina was to befriend.
Maria accepted a position as the Robledos’ cook, but she and Anac remained in the sodden forest living in whatever shelter they could obtain. Eventually, however, she reluctantly allowed Pedro to establish a very small corner of the lean-to as their sleeping quarters. With an outdoor oven and a stone bench on which the family did its cooking, the six of them settled down to some semblance of family life, though Maria and Anac were never truly to emotionally join them.
Although Senor Mattos had warned Catalina not to “go looking for five feet on this cat,” she could not help herself. She attributed the psychological distance she felt between herself and Maria to her inability to communicate adequately with her. Therefore, she tried to learn Maria’s words for simple things such as mud, rain, and fire, but she was not successful. When she spoke one of those words, Maria merely looked at her with a vacant stare and then, with flywhisk in hand, returned to her work. The children were slightly more successful with Anac. Although they could only speak to her when her mother was not present, for her mother jealously guarded her interactions, they managed to learn the words for eyes, hair, and different articles of clothing, but little else. The six of them occupied the same world but were not in it together.
Most significantly, Catalina discovered that Maria prepared meals, and even panes or loaves of bread for herself and for her child separate from what she cooked for the Robledos. Catalina discovered this when she attempted to serve the Indian family a portion taken from a larger loaf of bread she had just removed from the adobe oven. Not only did Maria refuse to eat it, she forcibly removed from Anac’s mouth a piece that Anac had been eating. Then, with Anac in tow, she angrily left the lean-to and proceeded toward the rain forest.
Although the Robledos did not know what to make of this behavior, the bread was a clue, for by the thread one comes to the ball of yarn. Catalina was horrified to learn from Senor Mattos, that Maria, who was attempting to gain revenge for the incarceration of her husband, was among those who were willfully trying to contaminate the Spaniards with the matalzahuatl. They did this by either throwing dead bodies into the ditches of running water from which the Spaniards obtained their drink, or by mixing diseased blood with the bread they made for European families. Nonetheless, despite her feelings of revulsion and terror, and her need to protect her family, she did not want Maria punished, for Catalina could not bear ill will toward anyone. At any rate, it did not matter, for Maria had removed herself beyond punishment. Maria and Anac had disappeared into the woods from which they had come.
* * *
During the months of August and September in which the matalzahuatl was most virulent, a few small mule trains left Vera Cruz for the interior. Most individuals, though, were content to wait on the plain for a break in the weather and for a decline in the epidemic. However, in the interior, far removed from those who waited on the soggy beach, others were making their own attempts to deal with the disease.
In the City of Mexico, Viceroy Martin Enriquez de Almanza, Archbishop Pedro de Moya, the regular and secular clergy, civil authorities, and all the people, especially the rich, did what they could to assist those afflicted with the scourge. They established infirmaries to provide the Indians with the medicine, food, and clothing they so badly needed. The clergy visited the sick to comfort them and also to ensure that none died without the Last Rites. However, the clergy was not successful in these latter endeavors, for Indian deaths exceeded more than 2,000,000, with 100,000 in the state of Tlascala alone. The clergy could not, in this vast country, reach all those who needed them, and the scourge continued.
The day dedicated to St. Hippolytus, August 13th, came and went, and nothing happened to ease the suffering. Finally, in despair, the people of Valley of Mexico asked that La Nuestra Senora de los Remedios (Our Lady of Remedies) be removed from her shrine in the village of Tacuba and, by solemn procession, taken to the City of Mexico. It was hoped that during this passage, the Virgin would see the devastation the disease had caused and would request an intercession by her Son.
Our Lady of Remedies was the statue of the Virgin Mary allegedly discovered by Juan de Tobar (his Spanish name), a cacique, or village chieftain, who lived on the western side of the Valley of Mexico. In 1540, it was said, while hunting on top of a hill near his home, Juan found a very small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary. She was about a hand high and was holding her Child on her left arm and a scepter in her right hand. Like the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe reputedly carved by St. Luke, and found in 1325 near Trujillo (and like numerous other statues of the Virgin buried throughout Spain in the wake of Muslim invasion), the present statue lay almost completely hidden among some rocks beneath a maguey plant where it had supposedly lain for almost 20 years. It was dropped, it was said, by one of Cortes’s soldiers as he fled the Aztecs on la noche triste (the sad night). Tobar took the statue home and made a little altar for it where it stood until 1555 when popular demand required he place it in the village church. Later, when the Virgin interceded in the curing of his blindness and his crippling condition, he had a chapel built to honor her on the spot where the statue had been found. This was the chapel, currently a splendid church (since 1574 under government patronage), from which the citizens now removed La Gachupina (the European Spaniard) the name by which the statue was also known.
Thus, on a dark and gloomy day in mid-September 1577, the Virgin was taken from Tacuba to the City of Mexico. She was accompanied by the viceroy, the audiencia (a council of magistrates), the ayuntamieto (or town council), and the most prominent citizens of the Valley. All held lighted tapers as the procession moved through the streets. Then, for nine consecutive days (a novena), Masses were said. Like the Virgin of Guadalupe, which had been paraded through Rome around AD 600 in an effort to end the plague, La Gachupina was carried through the streets of Mexico for the wonder and veneration of the community. Prayers were offered and promises made. The populace asked for mercy, not for themselves in this instance (although they, too, might fall), but for the Indians who were dying in great numbers. Soon the pestilence began to subside, and, finally, following a two-year period during which almost two-thirds of the Indian population of New Spain perished, the scourge disappeared.
After the epidemic, there was a scarcity of food and a fear of famine, the fields having long been abandoned. In his ‘benevolence’ toward the native population, the viceroy made two pronouncements in their favor. The Indians would be temporarily exempted from paying tribute and the public granaries, as well-stocked as possible under the present circumstances, would be made available to the poor. Here they might buy their corn and wheat at reasonable prices.
The Staging Area
The pleas for an intercession by La Gachupina were made during mid-September 1577. Also in mid-September, despite the negative reports still being received from the interior, the Robledos began to plan in earnest for their trip. Daily, trains laden with logwood and with dried insect bodies arrived in Vera Cruz from the lakes region. It was from these insects, the female Dactylopius coccus, 70,000 of which were required to obtain one pound of product, that the Spaniards obtained the natural dye cochineal. The insects, which were then shipped to Spain for processing, were used to dye wool the crimson, carmine, and scarlet of royalty so highly prized on the continent. Once the packs were unloaded, the Robledos could rent these mules and their muleteers for the return trip to Mexico City.
Following the disappearance of Maria and Anac, the Robledos destroyed the small shelter they had constructed for them within the lean-to. They used much of the cleared space along the back wall where the shelter had been to set up a packing table. When they were finally
